The present invention relates generally to agricultural systems and, more particularly, to a system and method for a quick-adjust cotton picker basket.
Agricultural vehicles such as tractors and combines are mainstays within the agricultural industry. One common agricultural vehicle is a harvester. Harvesters and, in particular, cotton pickers, typically include bins or baskets that hold the harvested crop as the harvester traverses the field.
On the other hand, it is advantageous that theses baskets be as large as possible to allow the operator to reap as much of the harvest as possible without being required to empty the basket. On the other hand, basket size must not reach heights that would interfere with power and communications lines when traveling between fields or make extended road travel difficult. As such, modern harvesters typically include baskets that expand to a maximum size for harvesting operations and then retract for travel between fields or extended travel over roads. In particular, these traditional telescoping baskets employ three separate height adjustments. First, the baskets have a minimum or lowered position that is required so that the baskets can be reduced to a size appropriate for being trucked or transported for extended periods. Second, the baskets have a maximum or raised operational position that creates a maximum volume for harvest storage. Third, since the raised position generally extends to heights that would interfere with power or communications lines during inter-field travel and adjusting the basket from the raised position to the lowered position is quite burdensome, traditional baskets typically have an intermediate position that is appropriate for short travel between fields but does not require the full extent of hardware reconfigurations necessary to switch the basket from the raised position to the lowered position.
For example, some harvesters, when the basket is in the raised position, have an overall height nearing 200 inches. In this case, it is necessary to reduce the overall height to approximately 160 inches to travel between fields and about 150 inches for trucking or extended transportations.
While employing an intermediate position for field travel reduces the burden of adjusting the basket between the full raised and full lowered positions, adjusting traditional telescoping basket systems between the intermediate and raised positions is still quite laborious and time consuming. That is, extensive preparation must be undertaken by the operator to raise and lower the basket. In particular, the operator must connect or disconnect/remove air chutes and other associated hardware from the basket. Then, the operator must use mechanical stands positioned over the basket lift cylinders to move an upper portion of the basket into or out of the lower portion of the basket to adjust between the raised, intermediate, and lowered positions. The burden of performing this process is further compounded by the need to repeatedly adjust the basket between the raised and intermediate positions when merely traveling between fields.